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James Laird-Smith
Current role
Data Scientist
The Financial Times (FT)
London, UK
March 2020 - (present)
* See Employment History section on next page for more details.
Education
University of Cape Town
Master of Commerce in Finance
Cape Town, South Africa
2015 - 2017
Thesis Topic: Market Betas on the JSE
* See Academic Publication and Master’s Research sections on page 4 for more details.
University of Cape Town
Bachelor of Business Science
Cape Town, South Africa
2009 - 2014
Specialisation: Finance
As part of this undergraduate degree program, I completed the following higher-level courses:
- Research and survey statistics
- Advanced micro and macroeconomics
- Econometrics
- Applied investments
- Alternative investments
- Financial research
Programming Skills Summary
R
Level: Advanced
N/A
2014 - (present)
- Base
- Tidyverse
- Modelling
- Visualisation
- OOP using S3
- Automation
- Package development
- Performance optimisation
SQL
Level: Advanced
N/A
N/A
Vega-Lite (in JavaScript)
Level: Intermediate
N/A
N/A
* See Programming Skills section on page 3 for a full breakdown of all areas.
Employment History
The FT is an international print and digital newspaper with a focus on business and economic current affairs.
Data Scientist
The Financial Times (FT)
London, UK
Nov 2018 - (present)
Previous role: Data Analyst (up to Feb 2020)
The FT’s Data Science team is responsible for creating and productionising statistical and machine learning models for use within the organisation. While at the FT, I have been involved in the following initiatives:
- I’ve been at the forefront of developing our Lifetime Value (LTV) modeling, where we estimate how likely each of our customers are to renew their subscriptions.
- As part of our product strategy I undertook a project to attribute value to our various product categories. This involved determining how much monetary value and engagement power is generated by each part of our digital real-estate.
- I have performed scenario modeling on a number of proposed product and commercial changes to determine their potential effect on advertising and subscription revenue.
- I’ve been involved in training other members of staff in how to use R.
Before moving to the Data Science team, I was a Data Analyst working as part of our Insights team, which is also part of our Customer Analytics department. During this time I was:
- The person responsible for all product-related analysis.
- In charge of administering all the FT’s A/B testing.
Analyst
ICBC Standard Bank (ICBCS)
London, UK
May 2018 - Jul 2018
ICBCS is a global financial markets and commodities bank based in London.
The Client Referential Data (CRD) team is responsible for managing client static and reference data used across the bank. My responsibilities included:
- Capture and maintenance of client data and settlement instructions.
- Managing subscriptions from market data sources.
- Performing reconciliations between internal systems.
Specialist
Maitland Group
Cape Town, South Africa
Mar 2015 - Nov 2017
Maitland Group is a global advisory and administration firm providing third-party fund administration to money managers.
While at Maitland, I was part of the Instrument and Fund Setup team. My responsibilities included:
- Import and maintenance of client reference data.
- The import of financial data from market sources (Bloomberg, Reuters etc).
- Building integration between systems and applications.
- Provide analysis and output data for audit and compliance purposes, as well as for management reports.
Programming Skills
R
Level: Advanced
N/A
2014 - (present)
I’ve been using R for many years now and so I think it’s worth providing a bit of detail on some of the skills I have gained.
R is a programming language and free software environment for statistical computing and graphics
Package development
I’ve developed many R packages of various levels of complexity and so I am very comfortable with the package development work-flow. This includes set-up, documentation and unit-testing.
Package development has also given me competence with R’s object orientated system, in particular with S3.
Performance optimisation
While developing R packages, I’ve learned how to make R code more performant by using techniques such as microbenchmarking and tools like profvis.
Data visualisation
I’ve contributed extensively to the the FT’s internally built ggplot2 theme, which is called ftplottools. In doing so, I’ve added extra options to customise placement of plot components and to make text rendering more accessible.
Automation
While at the FT, I’ve deployed various automated models and processes. For example, We have many statistical and machine learning models that are deployed to run on RStudio Connect. We also monitor the health of our code by integrating with CI tools, namely Circle CI and Github Actions.
SQL
Level: Advanced
N/A
2014 - (present)
SQL is a domain-specific language used in programming and designed for managing data held in a relational database management system.
I’ve been using SQL for many years now and am completely comfortable with all elements of the syntax. This includes advanced topics such as query optimisation. The dialect that I have worked with most is BigQuery’s standard syntax, but I have also used Redshift and MS SQL Server.
While at the FT, I have contributed to our own internal SQL style guide to help standardise good style practices across the business.
Vega-Lite (in JavaScript)
Level: Intermediate
N/A
2019 - (present)
I’ve created and published several charts using Vega-Lite. They can be viewed on my website under www.jameslairdsmith.com/charts/.
Vega-Lite is a high-level grammar of interactive graphics with both JSON and JavaScript APIs.
Academic Publication
A study of total beta specification through symmetric regression: the case of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange
Environ Syst Decis (2016) 36: 114
N/A
Jun 2016
Laird-Smith, J., Meyer, K. & Rajaratnam, K.
This journal article is a modified form of the project I completed in the final year of my undergraduate degree. The research examines the need for new methodology and specification for the CAPM beta parameter on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). It is available through the Springer online portal.
Master’s Research
Market Betas on the JSE: Market Segmentation, Estimation & Empirical Evaluation
MCom Dissertation Topic at the University of Cape Town
N/A
2015 - 2017
Supervisor: Kanshukan Rajaratnam
This dissertation was submitted as my M.Com (Finance) degree requirement at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and as such it is available online from UCT Libraries under their open access policy.
The dissertation uses statistical methods and in particular Factor Models to:
- Discover variables that can be used as predictors of investment return.
- Simulate and compare a large number of trading strategies.
- Conduct testing to make models more robust and consistent.
Packages
gs
Author and maintainer
N/A
Nov 2018 - (present)
A package to make recurring calendar events a little easier by providing a simple grammar for expressing them using R code. The package includes functions to:
- Represent all kinds of date elements found in the
lubridatepackage: years, months, weeks, days, weekdays, quarters, semesters etc.
- Represent dates in terms of their relations to one
another, such as the “third Friday of July” or the “last Thursday in August”.
- Specify ranges of dates, such as “after the first Monday
in July” but “before the last weekday of August”.
- Compose the above elements together in arbitrarily complex patterns.
Conference Proceedings
Introducing gs
rstudio::conf
San Francisco, USA
Jan 2019
E-Poster
For this conference I was asked to create an interactive presentation showcasing the gs package, the details of which can be found on the previous page. The session for presenting the e-posters was held during the conference opening function.
RStudio’s annual Conference
Introducing gs
EARL
London, UK
Sep 2019
Contributed talk
For this conference I was asked to deliver a 30 minute presentation on the {gs} package, the details of which can be found on the previous page.
Enterprise Applications of the R Language
Teaching Experience
Economics Tutor
University of Cape Town
Cape Town, South Africa
2010 - 2016
- Microeconomics
- Macroeconomics
- Microeconomics II (Intermediate)
- Macroeconomics II (Intermediate)
Head Tutor
Smuts Hall Residence
Cape Town, South Africa
2010
- Recruitment and coordination of all residence tutoring.
Speech & Debate Achievements
All in the British Parliamentary (BP) format.
Finalist
South African National Universities Debating Championships (SANUDC)
Cape Town, South Africa
2014
Also 2nd-top team and semi-finalist, Botswana 2015.
Top breaking team
Pan African Universities Debating Championships
Pretoria, South Africa
2011
Semi-final judge
World Universities Debating Championships
Cape Town, South Africa
2019